“That’s the problem with drinking, I thought, as I poured myself a drink. If something bad happens you drink in an attempt to forget; if something good happens you drink in order to celebrate; and if nothing happens you drink to make something happen.” ― Charles Bukowski, Women
“being alone never felt right. sometimes it felt good, but it never felt right.” ― Charles Bukowski, Women
“Nothing was ever in tune. People just blindly grabbed at whatever there was: communism, health foods, zen, surfing, ballet, hypnotism, group encounters, orgies, biking, herbs, Catholicism, weight-lifting, travel, withdrawal, vegetarianism, India, painting, writing, sculpting, composing, conducting, backpacking, yoga, copulating, gambling, drinking, hanging around, frozen yogurt, Beethoven, Back, Buddha, Christ, TM, H, carrot juice, suicide, handmade suits, jet travel, New York City, and then it all evaporated and fell apart. People had to find things to do while waiting to die. I guess it was nice to have a choice.” ― Charles Bukowski, Women
“People with no morals often considered themselves more free, but mostly they lacked the ability to feel or love.” ― Charles Bukowski, Women
“You begin saving the world by saving one man at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics.” ― Charles Bukowski, Women
“I was settled into nothingness; a kind of non-being, and I accepted it. It didn’t make for an interesting person. I didn’t want to be interesting, it was too hard. What I really wanted was only a soft, hazy space to live in, and to be left alone.” ― Charles Bukowski, Women
“When I was young I was depressed all the time. But suicide no longer seemed a possibility in my life. At my age there was very little left to kill. It was good to be old, no matter what they said. It was reasonable that a man had to be at least 50 years old before he could write with anything like clarity.” ― Charles Bukowski, Women
“There’s no way I can stop writing, it’s a form of insanity.” ― Charles Bukowski, Women
Light and Cloud-Shadows
“In Truth There Is Love”
A Special Message
by Jennifer Kiley
from: Letters To A Young Poet
Excerpt: from Letter #8
Rainer Maria Rilke
Post Created by jk the secret keeper
Created 05.15/16.13
Posted May 16th 2013
“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” ― Anaïs Nin
“Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.” ― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky
“We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.”
― Anaïs Nin
“Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but – I hope – into a better shape.” ― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
“The only way that we can live, is if we grow. The only way that we can grow is if we change. The only way that we can change is if we learn. The only way we can learn is if we are exposed. And the only way that we can become exposed is if we throw ourselves out into the open. Do it. Throw yourself.”
― C. JoyBell C.
“Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?” ― John Keats, Letters of John Keats
“Often, it’s not about becoming a new person, but becoming the person you were meant to be, and already are, but don’t know how to be.”
― Heath L. Buckmaster, Box of Hair: A Fairy Tale
“Pain is a pesky part of being human, I’ve learned it feels like a stab wound to the heart, something I wish we could all do without, in our lives here. Pain is a sudden hurt that can’t be escaped. But then I have also learned that because of pain, I can feel the beauty, tenderness, and freedom of healing. Pain feels like a fast stab wound to the heart. But then healing feels like the wind against your face when you are spreading your wings and flying through the air! We may not have wings growing out of our backs, but healing is the closest thing that will give us that wind against our faces.” ― C. JoyBell C.
“I believe in everything until it’s disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it’s in your mind. Who’s to say that dreams and nightmares aren’t as real as the here and now?” ― John Lennon
“I don’t paint dreams or nightmares, I paint my own reality.” ― Frida Kahlo
“I still get nightmares. In fact, I get them so often I should be used to them by now. I’m not. No one ever really gets used to nightmares.” ― Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves
“There are many who don’t wish to sleep for fear of nightmares. Sadly, there are many who don’t wish to wake for the same fear.” ― Richelle E. Goodrich, Dandelions: The Disappearance of Annabelle Fancher
“You learned to run from what you feel, and that’s why you have nightmares. To deny is to invite madness. To accept is to control.” ― Megan Chance, The Spiritualist
“My sleep wasn’t peaceful, though. I have the sense of emerging from a world of dark, haunted places where I traveled alone.” ― Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay
QUOTATIONS on DREAMS:
“I like the night. Without the dark, we’d never see the stars.” ― Stephenie Meyer, Twilight
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” ― Eleanor Roosevelt
“I think we dream so we don’t have to be apart for so long. If we’re in each other’s dreams, we can be together all the time.” ― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh
“People think dreams aren’t real just because they aren’t made of matter, of particles. Dreams are real. But they are made of viewpoints, of images, of memories and puns and lost hopes.” ― Neil Gaiman
“We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams.” ― Arthur O’Shaughnessy, Poems of Arthur O’Shaughnessy
“A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.” ― John Lennon
“You know that place between sleeping and awake, that place where you can still remember dreaming? That’s where I’ll always think of you.” ― J.M. Barrie
Your Elusive Creative Genius
TED Talk: Elizabeth Gilbert
Post Created by jk the secret keeper
Created 04.21.13
Posted 04.24.13
jean miro – harlequin’s carnival c. 1924-5
“Eat, Pray, Love” Author Elizabeth Gilbert muses on the impossible things we expect from artists and geniuses — and shares the radical idea that, instead of the rare person “being” a genius, all of us “have” a genius. It’s a funny, personal and surprisingly moving talk.
All people who are creative should listen to this TED Talk. Elizabeth Gilbert gives a most brilliant talk about creativity in a most humourous way. You will hear yourself in what she is saying. What she says will also give you some perspective to your life. jk the secret keeper
“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you’ve imagined.” ― Henry David Thoreau
“Believe in yourself and there will come a day when others will have no choice but to believe with you.” ― Cynthia Kersey
“To be creative means to be in love with life. You can be creative only if you love life enough that you want to enhance its beauty, you want to bring a little more music to it, a little more poetry to it, a little more dance to it.” ― Osho
“The creative act is a letting down of the net of human imagination into the ocean of chaos on which we are suspended, and the attempt to bring out of it ideas. — Terrance McKenna
“Solitude is the soil in which genius is planted, creativity grows, and legends bloom; faith in oneself is the rain that cultivates a hero to endure the storm, and bare the genesis of a new world, a new forest.” ― Mike Norton, White Mountain
“When walking alone in a jungle of true darkness, there are three things that can show you the way: instinct to survive, the knowledge of navigation, creative imagination. Without them, you are lost.” ― Toba Beta, My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut
“Writers do not have the privilege of sleep. There is always a story coming alive in their heads, constantly composing. Whether they choose it or not.” ― Coco J. Ginger
“Remember to delight yourself first, then others can be truly delighted.” This was my mantra when I published my first book in 1990, and still holds true. When we focus on the song of our soul and heart, then others will be touched similarly. Sometimes people wonder or worry whether people will like or approve of their creative expression. It’s none of your business. It’s your business to stay present and focused for the work of your deepest dreams. It might look crooked or strange, or be very odd-but if it delights you, then it is yours, and will find it’s way into other hearts.” ― S.A.R.K.
“All you have to do is put one word after another, and remember how great it feels to be a writer.” ― Stephanie Lennox
“In his creative work the artist is dependent on sources and resources deriving from the spiritual unconscious.” ― Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search For Ultimate Meaning
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” ― Søren Kierkegaard
“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.” ― Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” ― Marie Curie
“What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.” ― Aristotle
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche
“Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens.” ― Carlos Ruiz Zafón
“Books are the mirrors of the soul.” ― Virginia Woolf
“Rummaging in our souls, we often dig up something that ought to have lain there unnoticed. ” ― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
“Words are a pretext. It is the inner bond that draws one person to another, not words.” ― Rumi
“I have lots of things to teach you now, in case we ever meet, concerning the message that was transmitted to me under a pine tree in North Carolina on a cold winter moonlit night. It said that Nothing Ever Happened, so don’t worry. It’s all like a dream. Everything is ecstasy, inside. We just don’t know it because of our thinking-minds. But in our true blissful essence of mind is known that everything is alright forever and forever and forever. Close your eyes, let your hands and nerve-ends drop, stop breathing for 3 seconds, listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world, and you will remember the lesson you forgot, which was taught in immense milky way soft cloud innumerable worlds long ago and not even at all. It is all one vast awakened thing. I call it the golden eternity. It is perfect. We were never really born, we will never really die. It has nothing to do with the imaginary idea of a personal self, other selves, many selves everywhere: Self is only an idea, a mortal idea. That which passes into everything is one thing. It’s a dream already ended. There’s nothing to be afraid of and nothing to be glad about. I know this from staring at mountains months on end. They never show any expression, they are like empty space. Do you think the emptiness of space will ever crumble away? Mountains will crumble, but the emptiness of space, which is the one universal essence of mind, the vast awakenerhood, empty and awake, will never crumble away because it was never born.” ― Jack Kerouac, The Portable Jack Kerouac
“It is only through mystery and madness that the soul is revealed” ― Thomas Moore
“Once the soul awakens, the search begins and you can never go back. From then on, you are inflamed with a special longing that will never again let you linger in the lowlands of complacency and partial fulfillment. The eternal makes you urgent. You are loath to let compromise or the threat of danger hold you back from striving toward the summit of fulfillment.” ― John O’Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom
“What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind.”
― William Wordsworth
“A cathartic experience is when emotional pain, held in the body’s sentient memory, finds its way into consciousness. It is expressed through crying, or the release of anger, or a whole gamut of other, previously unexpressed emotions, such as the joy we could not feel because it had been snatched away in moments of toxic intervention by others. Catharsis is the moment of cognition when we make those links and purge those wounds…The nature of emotional pain is transfigured when wounding is fully re-encountered on the emotional level on which it originally occurred. Catharsis precedes deep transformation.” — Dr. Niamh Clune, The Coming of the Feminine Christ
“The spirit has spoken the ancient, primordial language of Colour. The mental body has translated it into the language of soul, which is the universal language of symbolism. The physical brain interprets its meaning according to the framework of knowledge at its disposal. The brain sends its signals through the nervous system which manifest eventually as physical response.” — Dr. Niamh Clune, The Coming of the Feminine Christ
I started my first blog in 2011 as an outlet to express my thoughts. That blog eventually created a need in me to find an outlet for my emotional feelings. Inside of me was a deeply felt pain that needed to be exorcised. I decided to create another blog where I decided I would express my feelings as freely as possible, not holding back the truth or hiding the pain I felt and what was causing it.
I had no idea at first what exactly I was doing. I learned from scatch. As I created each post, I learned how to develop and make my blog grow. But something didn’t feel right. I stopped for a short time.
Then Whitney Houston died so suddenly that it shocked me. It created in me a need to express how her death made me feel. I wanted to write something or do something to honour her. The year before I felt similar feelings when Amy Winehouse died on my birthday, a need to write something about her and to get to know who she really was because I didn’t really know Amy Winehouse. With Whitney Houston the level of intensity went higher because of the way I felt for Whitney for a very long time. Discovery her when she first sang the song The Greatest Love of All caused a phenomenal change in my life. There was a strong attachment inside of me for Whitney Houston. She brought a smile to my face from the first moment I heard her voice and discovered who she was. I kept calling that college radio station to play her song. From there I followed her career. I still haven’t been able to watch the film “The BodyGuard” since her death. I am afraid if I see her so alive in that film that it will really upset me so much and make me have to accept that she really is gone. For some reason that is so hard for me to accept.
The post on Whitney Houston was just the beginning though. I listened to her music and cried everytime I heard her voice or thought about her. Her death lit a fire in me that started growing. I eased myself back into starting up my blog again. By the end of April 2012 I was writing at least a minimum of one post a day. On some days this would increase. People started following my blog. There were several regular people who seemed to be there everytime I would post. They would “like” my posts. That was and is extremely exciting for me. I do not take that for granted and I feel honoured. One friend and follower that I have reads everyone of my posts. That truly amazes me. She is an author who I also follow.
There is one person who started following me who started making comments. Really brilliant comments that made me have to take a deep breath that contained within it a touch of anxiety and a day to think how I would answer the comments this person left. It was like a mental and emotional game of word chess. My first challenges and also my first friend from writing my blog and I began to follow her blog. Her writing was/is brilliant.
It turned out my partner knew this person also, but I didn’t realize that. She actually won a signed copy of the book “The Dragon Keeper’s Handbook,” one of my partner’s published books, by guessing the date our kittens would be born from a stray pregnant cat that we had taken in. I came in second by picking the exact number of kittens born which was three. I, also, knew we were not going to be giving any of those sweet little boys away. Their names are Carter, Parker and Poe.
It was awhile after this when I asked my partner how to pronounce this person’s name that I found out the connection. I friended her on Facebook after that, when I got brave enough, but I was not going by my nom de plume that I used on my blog. So for awhile, I kept my identity a secret. I wanted the two worlds to be separate. It didn’t take her too long to figure out that we were the same person but I confessed my true identity before she told me she had figured it out. That was rather cool of her for letting me be the first to reveal the truth.
Eventually, I made an announcement on Facebook who I really was and that I was officially changing my name and only using my legal name for documents. From then on I was to be know as the name I use as a writer. My last name, as a writer, is a family name. It belonged to one of my Irish grandmothers for who I was named. I loved her maiden, so I took it as my own.
I continued writing my blog and started taking on challenges that I created for myself. I would publish several posts a day. I started getting brave and began writing poetry that I found the courage to post. I illustrated and added music to my posts. Each step led me to adding more ideas to create into post. The creating of my own art and posting it had been bubbling up for awhile and then one day I felt what I needed to do. That’s when I started to post my art work and to develop new ways to express myself in that art. The secret keeper was and is quite eclectic in what I post. My mind is too diverse to limit or focus on any particular form. And now I am writing and just starting to publish posts of my own film reviews. They will be a mix of older films alternating weekly with newer films. Since, I am limited in respect to going to the theatre, if there is a brand new film that is released that I am not able to see at that time, I will be sure to follow it’s progress and report through trailers and reviews from those whom I respect and often check out the site for “rotten tomotoes.” They are fairly accurate on the mix of comments and reviews from both the audience feedback as well as the professionals input.
(In fact, in a future post for my film reviews, I intend to watch and review “The BodyGuard.” I think it is time to face the feelings of loss, not just for Whitney Houston, but for all those who leave this world when they are way too young. I will go into that aspect of life and death, losing someone you deeply love, when I get to writing about Whitney and her role in our culture and how much I love and enjoy her music and how profoundly her soul effects me. Listen to her sing: “I Look To You” which I recently posted with her lyrics and video. It’s a surrender and acceptance that you need power not to come just from yourself but from others and a place beyond you. The film review for “The BodyGuard” should be coming up soon.)
What started out as an experiment and a place where I just wanted an outlet for my feelings to be expressed has turned into a real creative endeavor that I must say I am finding quite addicting. My therapist feels it is a great outlet but she feels I also need to take it slower and develop my ideas for “the secret keeper” at a more manageable rate. Bipolar “Spectrum” Disorder, when one is in a high state can take you rather off to the end of the pier and you plainly just run out of space and inevitable you crash into the sea or up against an extremely crazy set of playing cards in Wonderland or you fall over the edge like in a dream and it’s better if you slip into a deep sleep before you hit the end of the darkness. (Question for Quora fans: Is there an End to the Darkness? Universe-Multiverse or other Dimensions…)
Outside of the blog I also work on writing creative works for short stories and screenplays and longer fictional pieces. I am reworking a screenplay now that I lost in the multiple crashes of two hard drives within two weeks of the other. I find that when you lose something so important, the rewriting of the piece tends to go deeper and develops into something much better than the original. I am hopeful that this will happen with this script.
To close, my blog is named “the secret keeper” on wordpress for a rather important reason. I felt as a child there were so many secrets. So much abuse of all kinds that never were ever spoken about or even recognized as happening. Whether there was a knowledge of any of it is debatable today. There are strong feelings that certain people conspired, a non-delusional conspiracy. But there was too much silence when things should have been spoken out loud. Now there are no secrets. I call myself the secret keeper for two reasons specifically. One, I will keep secrets that are meant to be kept in confidence and two, I will shout out loud those secrets that should never remain hidden or kept, especially by children that are being abused or if you are adult and being abused, that should not be kept a secret. What happens in the darkness that is evil should always have the light shone down upon it.
I should also state that I feel there are certain secrets that are kept silent that have to do with mental capabilities. Having bipolar is one example of something that I feel does not need to be secret for me. Being a lesbian, another thing some would like to have kept a secret. One’s beliefs, one’s ideas, speaking out against prejudice of any kind. Secrets bring into my mine another “S” word and that is “Shame.” It is all painted in the same portrait. The word “secret” has so many meanings. I believe in “Truth” and “Honesty” but I don’t believe in hurting someone. I think for the Alphabet Challenge, which this post is part of, the “S” word should be “Secret” and there I will elaborate further on what “secret” means and what it means to me. And I think, also, the word “Shame” needs closer examination. The Alphabet Challenge can fill many posts, not just 26 but it can start from the beginning again at “A” where I would like to examine the word “Artist” the next time around. jk the secret keeper…
I stand here guarding her heart
the heat here almost more than I can stand
She contains the universe to me
and I hungrily await her command
She is the fire that brings warmth
Creative urges ignite by her glance
Yet her eyes fall on others never me
A truly inspiring artist of the word and image. His philosophical approach is mind expanding. I highly recommend Waking Spirals as a regular hang out and its' blog-master an artistic genius. j.k the secret keeper. ps. Quote of the Day is a feature that is always so enlightening and the magic he preforms with his art intriguing and mind-bendingly creative.
The day after Thanksgiving Yule trees were stacked against the local supermarkets, hardware and feed stores, early casualties in the annual collision between high commerce and high holidays. Black Friday, a day when, at least here in the States, madness sets in on the side of commerce. Mild-mannered, feast-sluggish human beings turn into fearless berserkers all for the sake of deals on stuff, briefly appreciated yet then long-added to the general clutter of their lives.
Lovely art topping the page, and it seems my blog page too. I know that Shawn MacKenzie created this art herself. The story you concoct is a hypothetical conclusion to a possibility. My philosophy prefers to chose the magical story that I learned as a child during all the many Christmas pageants I participated in when schools were allowed to celebrate Christmas in this fashion. I'm not so sure anymore if this pleasure has been taken away in favor of so mish mash of a generic celebration of the season of a plethora of holiday celebrations. I am not saying that everyone should not have a voice, I am just saying it wasn't a religious thing for me when I was a kid, it was just fun. I think children are left out with all the fighting over separation of church and state. Christmas Trees are fun and once were pagan. Christmas caroling was fun and I think some people did enjoy them. They had a certain beauty to them. The story at Mackenzie's dragons nest is a good story to tell. Is it a true interpretation of what might possibly have been the case. Sure, it could have been. Is the myth of the manger have a basis in fact, that too could be possible. I enjoy the myth of the manger. Whether I can logically accept a virgin birth, that is another matter. I like to believe in miracles and magic and mystical occurrences. There is plenty of room for all to believe in their own miracles or not. No one should emphatically dismiss anyone's evaluation of their beliefs or lack there of. This is a great post and a well thought out theory. Accept it if you will or just enjoy and continue to trust in your own beliefs. Read with an open mind and allow yourself to be entertained. All things are possible. Believing in Christmas and celebrating Hanukah is part of my tradition. At our house we also celebrate the Hogfather bringing the toys for the children as well as Santa Claus. Peter Pan and Neverland exists and so do dragons. Chose what you will to believe in. I think and feel it is necessary to believe in something and to live a life filled with meaning. It makes my life fuller. So for those who believe, Happy Holidays for whatever you celebrate and for those who don't, let others believe what they do and go about your life in your own way. Well done Shawn MacKenzie. Enjoyed the post. Hope others will take them time to visit your page and read it for themselves. It is well worth your time. Don't forget to enjoy the beautiful art Shawn MacKenzie created that tops the page of her post. J.k. the secret keeper ps. HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT!!! :-)
You Were In My Dreams
By Jennifer Kiley
Art Created by j. kiley
11.17.12
November Month of the Verse 30 days 30 verses #18 WARNING: RATED FOR CONTENT NC-17
